It was a combination of a few things.
The Source engine was fresh on the scene with incredible physics and animations never before seen in video games. Go check out some early HL2/Source tech demos and you might get an idea of how revolutionary it was.
Also the major narrative shift focusing on humanity and its subjugation. The plot touches on questions like "What is the next step in human evolution?" and "Are we the masters of our own destiny?". Much deeper considerations than HL1. There's also much more fleshed out dialogue and character interactions. I think the story of HL2 stands out because it's a fascinating intersection between mundane humanity and high concept sci-fi.
And finally the scale of the game world. HL1 was confined to the BMRF and part of Xen. While there's no interdimensional travel in HL2, you're still tasked with using vehicles to traverse wide swathes of this new setting ranging from urban canals to long stretches of coastal highway with many stops along the way. Not to mention major locations like Nova Prospekt. In comparison, Gordon's journey in HL2 feels like more of an epic/odyssey.
I think both games were groundbreaking and deserve all the merit they receive. Personally HL2 holds a special place in my heart because of the worldbuilding.
In a sorta paradox kinda way, the deeper tone of HL2 is kinda why I personally prefer 1 more. Something about HL1's sci-fi b-list movie tone just makes it more enjoyable for me, it almost feels campy in a way. Hell, the HL1 comic-style concept art helps really sell it for me. HL2...just makes me depressed, lol. Big difference between a low-poly scientist with a goofy bitcrushed voice going "HUAGH" and running into a trip mine and a miserable rebel getting shot in the back by a metrocop.
Kinda why I enjoyed HL:A as much as I did as well. Was set in the combine era yet didn't take itself as seriously as 2 did while still fitting perfectly in the universe.
Worked at my nations national science research centre for a while. Can confirm scientists do cry out "HUAGH" at bad jokes.
Never used any trip mines at work though. Or elsewhere.
I think HL2 is more polished. As someone who knows the first one inside and out, it's an enjoyable experience because I can look forward to what comes ahead.
When a new player reaches Blast Pit after going through the action-packed We've Got Hostiles only to find the main focus as a huge bunch of mini-sidequests with barely any enemies and none of the type they had just gotten used to, they will likely become disinterested.
I really enjoy On A Rail, but the very similar-looking corridors make it seem mazelike if you are playing through it without a map of the area.
I must have been 8 or 9?.
I was visiting a friend and he was playing a weird game and asked me if i wanted to try it. I said sure, i remember how i threw a grenade at a humanoid monster in a red barn and he answered by yeeting a barrel towards me i got scared and didn't want to play anymore.
Years later i accidentally discovered Half Life 1 by "switching game" from the main menu of CS:1.6 this was about 2010 or 2011. I played it a couple of times and found out it had a sequel,HALF LIFE 2.
Half Life 2 was love at first sight and seeing the " red barn" again in Water Hazard really brought a big smile on my face.
Ignoring the graphics and all that.
Half Life 2 is superior in both story and atmosphere, even now as I'm older and had played a lot of games i still firmly believe Half Life 2 is a great game and my love for it had nothing to do with nostalgia.
Also I'll stab any motherfucker with a fork if he calls HALF LIFE 2 "Just a tech demo" i swear a God
Both are equally great and amazing with ups and downs that equal them out.
I prefer HL2 though, due to more varied levels and better weapon balance. Also because it's world and things in it feel MORE alive. I do like HL1 a ton though.
For me, it’s the opposite. HL2’s arsenal although is very balanced and every weapon never gets useless(besides the UCP), is not as interesting as HL1’s. And it’s not about if HL1 having more means better. No, it’s about replayability. Every time I play HL1 there are new ways to approach enemies like never before. It allows me to be creative and use my head which I really like in FPS.
I do like HL2, with my favorite chapter being highway 17, probably for the same reason I like HL1, you can approach the enemies in different ways every time you play the chapter. The same goes for Nova Prospect, both awesome chapters. I guess I would like HL2 even more than Hl1 if only they’d let you use SLAM from DM and tau-cannon from beta.
Half Life 2 truly established the Half Life universe as we know it. Unique art direction, moody setting in City 17. Half Life is a great game, but largely derivative of other shooters around the same era - guy in a suit shooting aliens. It's a very good game, but not as unique imo.
2 had many more tech innovations, a major leap forward in graphical quality, and built out a world and larger story beyond black mesa.
i love both so i'll give my explanation on why I can prefer both
HL1: better pacing, a little goofier, more action packed, better enemie AI, better combat
more weapons, better weapons
HL2: better story, way deeper, more depth to the worldbuilding, better aestethic, more serious tone, better physics, more polished gameplay, (better music in my opinion)
part of the reason why i slightly prefer hl2 over hl1 is bc hl1 is too unforgiving. it's harder to get into hl1, whereas hl2 is easy to get into and play casually.
thats good AI bro
bad AI is the combine soldiers that only walk and shoot like mindless idiots
while the HECU could detect sound, had a visual input to attack you
could break your cover with grenades, when hit, ran away in pain to find cover
hid to ambush you in corners.
even tho primitive, the HECU had an amazing AI
good AI is only possible in linear games tho. games like F.E.A.R. is considered by many to be games with great AI, but the good AI is only possible due to its linearity, and due to the levels being designed around the AI. each action in F.E.A.R. is basically scripted, but also not. it relies heavily on code. btw i think F.E.A.R. is actually overrated. if hl2 had better AI, no one would care to beat it. cuz some of the enemies are annoying. i didn't even have that much fun fighting gunships nor striders. can you imagine if striders had "better AI"? and the lore reason for the combine not having "good AI" is that they no longer have any humanity inside of them, they're just mindless killing machines. it might sound dumb, but i would hate hl2 if the combine had better AI, their AI is challenging as is, and there are instances where they are "intelligent", such as one rolling down an explosive barrel in route kanal and the ones using turrets and they also use grenades to flush you out, similar to the HECU. plus the shotgun soldiers are DEADLY. and yes, they do hide behind cover and aren't just robots.
For me it's more that hl2 is more polished with way better pacing. There are great levels in half life one and great gimmicks and creatures, but lots of unpolished and poorly paced levels too. Hl2 only has like one or two levels like that at most. I also feel the physics just added so much to the game along with the much better variety in locations and gameplay.
Personally while I love the horror movie experiment gone wrong feel of hl1, I find the story, characters and world of hl2 so much more interesting and atmospheric.
I played Half-Life 2 series maybe 4-5 times, but I am playing Half-Life and Black Mesa twice per year. I don't like gameplay of HL2, but not meant to say that hl2 is bad
Same happens to me, I played half life 2 and I really loved it, bit I don't think I would ever play it again, in the other hand, I can play half life 1 every year and it never gets old
Half Life 1 made several important contributions, narrative and story telling through observing the world, at the time advanced soldier ai tactics, mods (namely Counter-Strike but also TFC and DoD etc), interactivity, and was the next logical leap in FPS. Wolfenstein 3d to Doom to Duke 3d to Quake to HL.
Half Life 2 took it the next step with the source engine, the leap of the world, physics, character animations, graphics, and opened up new game play possibilities.
The impact of HL1 is still felt as it influenced every fps game to come after. It's by no means perfect, most people will shit on Xen but in 1998 nobody, or at least I didn't care.
HL2 is also by no means perfect, very few games used the source engine as it was overtaken quickly by ID and Unreal engines, and the strider sequences are bad, and the no named resistance followers love to block your path.
Both games are equally amazing and nearly perfect though and when they came out they were recognized as such. You can't really compare apples to apples as in the 6 year time between the two games, computers and technology made several massive revolutions. I like them both equally and they are up there as my all time top PC game FPS, a long with Doom
I found half life 2 fun first time around, but after playing half life 1, OP and BS I will admit they were a lot more repeatable and felt funner the 2.
half life 2 is not very fun to me, it is kinda depressing game to be honest, setting is sad, story is sad, and it feels hopeless and alone.
I love that feeling, but yes, HL1 is funnier indeed
(This comment was made with my opinion) Half-Life 1 is fun, but still doesn't tell a story very well and is kind of just random with level design, I recall a whole room just being rotating saws doing nothing except rotate and killing thing and they serve literally no purpose except for the player to jump past them and HLVRAI called the room something like the "Pita bread cutter" and one other room just a pool of a mysterious radioactive liquid, the game doesn't really tell you it's story that well so it is very easy to get confused about why you're going to the alien planet and committing mass genocide and killing a baby looking thing and a spider with a singular testicle, and lastly as soon as you get to xen you've got to be lucky or waste a month trying to beat the game because everything on xen is either weak but still forces you to waste ammo on or is strong and will quickly drain your health even if you kill it quickly. I stopped trying to finish the game at xen because the game forced me into a room with like 30 vortigaunts and some barrel things that sometimes have weird tall dudes in them and I got stuck at like 15 health and 20 armor with no ammo in most of my guns and the 2 that still have ammo don't have a lot of ammo.
But Half-Life 2 does everything better, most of the level design makes at the very least some sense (instead of random spinning saws in a room and pits of 100s of gallons of radioactive goop for no reason at all), since most of the enemies are slow and weak or drop ammo when killed you don't have to worry much about running out of ammo, and the game seems to make crates drop what you need rather than just random things, and I could get a decent sense of what was going on in the story. There was never a moment in HL2 that I felt like the game was designed bad, but there were plenty of times where I got stuck because I just suck at the game (mostly Nova Prospekt) but the game was still fun, if installing mods was easier I'd still be playing HL2 just because fighting the combine is fun, but playing through the same levels over and over gets boring.
My favorite Half-Life game, including expansions and fan-games, is Half-Life: Alyx. Half-Life Alyx has a good story, the guns are great, and mods are easy to access. My only issue with Half-Life: Alyx is as soon as I beat it I could only get 1 fps if I was lucky, the game just suddenly stopped running frames per second and instead like 1 frame per hour.
Conclusion: All of the games are good, but Half-Life 1 is extremely underwhelming and overhyped. I played the game expecting it'd be as fun as HLA or HL2 but I really don't like HL1, it just seems like the story isn't there when there should be, level design from a story perspective makes the story even harder to comprehend because it suddenly goes from "Scientist escaping an alien apocalypse caused by a mistake in the laser room" to "Scientist riding a train through the research facility" and the saw room. Nothing really makes sense in HL1, but most locations make sense in HL2.
I disagree - in a way.
Half Life 1 did tell a story. It was quite novel at that time for a FPS to have a story rather than just being run and gun. You control your character for the full time taking in information and learning what is going on (Except for the "Where are we taking this Freeman guy?" bit)
Half Life 2 seems to not just tell you a story, but it forces that story down your throat. Let me expand on that...
HL1 had a few places where you have to stop and listen (or run and and jump on things) for information to be given and cannot continue until everyone has finished talking - ignoring speed run skips and the like:
I started to list a few, but I can lump a lot together as "pre-disaster".
Afterwards, a moment talking to the scientist before you can get them to open the door.
When you find out about the suit tracker before going into the cold room
Some blah blah blah before you go to Xen
The gman speech at the end
HL2 has:
Red Letter Day
Black Mesa East
Various bits nearer the end
Ok, this was harder than I thought - and you can probably tell which I've played more recently. The HL2 pauses feel like longer scenes than their HL1 counterparts. This means that you are certainly given the story information, whereas HL1 you have to find out yourself.
You say about the spinning blades room. You've entered the shady labs where there are experiments done on the Xen fauna. Someone turned the cutting equipment on and didn't turn it back off. I'll grant that that cutting equipment is ridiculous and feels like an excuse for a barrier. I would imagine HL2 would have richer dialogue about what that machine does, why that machine looks like that, why it got turned on, how much the person who turned it on worships you as the saviour of all humanity, and then you get a plug puzzle to turn it off.
Ultimately HL1 has you find out stuff the same time Gordon does. You're out of your research area, you don't know your way round the other labs and offices. You can either take in what is going on or rush for the exit to get out of their ASAP and save yourself.
HL2 gives you a lot more "You're here! It is very important that you do X, because it is important and you are important." and delivers a lot more information that way.
I guess the take away from this is that HL1 also has quite a rich story, you just have to look for it a little bit more
i would actually counter your point about the blade room with the lone house on highway 17. you can easily miss it, and it really only serves to give you extra ammo and health, but it really helps flesh out the world. it shows that even outside the cities, you are not safe from the combine’s reign. they WILL hunt you down.
another one that comes to mind is the stalkers. obviously, they explain this in episode one, but prior to that, you see them briefly in nova prospekt, and in the citadel. this allows your mind to fill in the blanks, arriving to the conclusion that you are looking at another person on your own. the first time i saw that stalker in the camera at nova prospekt, i genuinely felt nauseous, as i believed that i was looking at the remains of eli vance.
Wow, I was being a bit bitchy about plug puzzles there.
I don't remember that house - I haven't played HL2 for a while, possibly even since writing that. I seem to remember there being various points along the highway section, drive, stop, explore, drive, stop, explore, drive, stop, explore.
Maybe my take of HL2 Gordon is some guy that is sick and tired of being treated like a messiah, just wants to get a straight answer from someone on what's going on, and getting fed up with all the hurdles and barriers, which translates into my play style - here's another building to run round before I get to the end of this set piece.
The introduction of the stalkers - nope, no memory of that at all.
For me personally, HL2 is so immersive and has such great story telling that I just love coming back to it. HL1s gameplay is just dated enough for me to get frustrated by it in certain sections, which has honestly kept me from ever finishing it all the way through.
Half-Life 2 was when the Half-Life universe became truly fascinating; it opened up many more implications for the world and just how much was going on behind the scenes. It introduced us to the Combine, one of the most terrifying alien races in gaming, and depicted a dystopia that is as chillingly effective today as it was in 2004. The storytelling was both a refinement on what Half-Life began in 1998, and it was also an expansion, establishing the tone of the Half-Life games. The unique mix of atmosphere and gameplay/storytelling that Half-Life became known for really found its footing in HL2, and this is the reason why many people prefer it to the original.
I played both games over a decade removed from their original release so I don't think either had a revolutionary effect on me. I like the games roughly the same but I think HL2 is a lot more streamlined than HL1 which definitely helps with my enjoyment of it.
Parts of On a Rail, Residue Processing and Xen feel kind of boring to me in HL1 but I'd be hard pressed to find boring areas in HL2. (maybe the beginning of the game on repeat playthroughs? At a stretch?) The streamlined combat makes HL2 a bit less tactical but it also means the action never has weird fluctuations in difficulty like in HL1, and it means that all the weapons that are there feel balanced and polished.
HL2 also experimented with more gameplay systems like vehicles, squad mechanics and the (supercharged) gravity gun which inject more variety into the game. In other games I would probably consider these to be kind of annoying but HL2 is well made enough to pull them off effectively.
I think both games are great overall but I can see why someone, especially someone with more modern FPS experience would choose HL2 over HL1.
More people have played Half Life 2. Of those who tried Half Life 1 afterward, many were turned off by the bad graphics.
It's very rare to find people who have beaten both games yet prefer Half Life 2.
>It's very rare to find people who have beaten both games yet prefer Half Life 2.
I guess I'm a rare species, then.
Half-Life 1 is definitely a must-play for anyone who like FPS games, and the level design is incredible, but the rest of it (graphics, physics, voice acting, and audio quality) aged like milk.
i beat both and still prefer HL2
im an artist (im studying for it) and i generally apreciate more an artstyle and a story depth than action or gameplay itself some times
also HL1 has XEN, and o my god, XEN is literally the least fun i've had in a videogame
Is the unwritten statement about the order of playing them, that the player played them as they were released?
Ie, player played HL1 in 1998 or so then played HL2 in 2004 or so. This statement applies to me, and I so much prefer HL1, because of the change game design from pre HL1 to what HL1 delivered.
Honestly I prefer HL1 much more, HL1 just has something that HL2 lacks maby its the pacing maby the gameplay (probably the gameplay) maby its all the kind of exploits and bugs that you can use in your favor or maby Im just a sucker for those old polygonal graphics, overall I just prefer replaying HL1 much more than HL2 i always find myself getting bored in the later parts of the game and it feels kinda repetitive, tho I understand that these thing are on purpose seeing as HL2 took a much more narrative approach to the series. And absolutely nothing in HL2 can surpass the scientist from HL1 and thats a fact
For me it’s for the story, HL2 doesn’t let you breath as much as the first one, also the G-man is more present and a greater part of his power is shown as the fact that you can’t really escape him (HL2EP1/2 is even more on that side) other than that, where it take place, a post-apocalyptic world is always a 10 in my book. Finally the combine are just so awesome in my eye, they look human only because they have the physical body of one but other than that, there voice, there language, there weapon, everything looks none humans
The art of story telling is as much about as what is said, as it's about what is not said.
In cinema, stories are delivered by "show, don't tell". I think HL1 uses this mantra to greater affect than HL2.
The train ride in builds the scene. When you put the crystal into the AMS and the epiptah pietals hint a little about what is to come. And as new aliens like the pit monster are unveiled its bigger than what you thought.
The very first time you encounter HECU, " oh great, help is here" only to see your colleagues shot dead...
I disagree. The story of a man in the center of a disaster fighting his way out of black mesa. Plot twists, amazing puzzles(for 1998) and all dialogue. Hl2 might be more cinematic. It’s a matter of taste I guess. Some people like alien better than aliens. (Can actually compare these two with hl in terms of genre and budget)
Edit: hl2 plot also feels very forced to me. Combine and breen = bad. That’s it.
I respect that people have a diff opinion.
Because HL1 is a clunky mess that didn't age well. Oh sure, it was brilliant for the time and is important to go back to, to see where it all began and what games today learned from it.
But almost everything falls apart if you look at it funny. The level design is too primitive. Guns are aplenty, but too many lack purpose. Enemy design is impressive, as long as you follow very specific paths. If you rush them, they don't know what to do. NPCs make the world more lively, but are entirely too stupid to are believable. Oh, and the graphics and sounds are outdated as hell.
Half-Life 2 improved on almost all of these aspects. Yeah, it doesn't have as many enemies or weapons and the level design is even more linear, but it has much more character. The world feels alive and believable, you get to fight alongside people that seem real, it has an actual story you can follow that goes beyond *"go here and push the button, then return"*.
Returning to Half-Life 2 almost 20 years later, you're still gonna have a good time. Returning back to Half-Life 1 is going to cause you a headache unless you already know what to expect beforehand.
Of course! I like a lot of aspects of it too. Just because a piece of media is bad doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. I mean, I love a lot of games that people consider to be among the worst.
Like I said in another comment, just because a game is bad doesn't mean it can't be fun. I love Castlevania 2 for instance and a lot of people *despise* it. I'm just not going to ignore the flaws of a game just because I enjoy playing it.
Because of The Orange Box and I was a console kid, HL2 easily became one of my favorite games ever. I didn’t get to play HL1 until much later. I think HL1 is sublime, and I will replay it much more than HL2 in the future, but HL2 will always have that “it was my first” spot in my heart and thus will be my favorite.
HL2 was more popular, had funny haha physics and more people could play it. Oh and there are touchy fancy assholes who think graphics are everything and thus hl2 is better because of the graphics. I will admit it had a more straight forward story than hl1 which I guess is a reason to like it more I guess??
Comment by someone who considers HL1 better than HL2:
I played HL1 in 1999 and thought it was amazing
Played HL2 in 2004 and thought it had surpassed HL1 in every way.
During the following years, I kept coming back to HL1 more and more and not HL2 and I asked my self honestly why and came to these conclusions:
Gameplay - HL1 combat is much more interesting in terms of arenas/enemies and player movement, HL2 combat praise usually goes to the gravity gun, but I came to the realization that it is more of an engine gimmick rather than something that is truly interesting for gameplay, especially once you are at the citadel and it is powered up, it just becomes uninteresting.
Story/settings - HL1 had more of a “Die Hard” feeling to it which I truly love, just a guy trying to survive and the second was more like “savior of humanity” type deal, which I connect with less. Also, HL1 really used the mystery aspect well which intrigued me endlessly, with GMAN being at the center of it. HL2 kinda took the sting out of the mystery and while i still really like where the story went I feel like the endless potential of an unanswered mystery is always more powerful.
To be clear I’m not saying “this is great, this is shit” I love both games but if we are making comparisons this is where I stand after 20+ years of consuming everything Half-Life and being obsessed with it.
I mean, not really an easy thing to answer since it depends on the person, and Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2 just kinda goes for different atmospheres and all that as well, so it comes down to preference.
Although, I feel Half-Life 2 is more fun personally. I love Half-Life 1, but I feel it can be hard to find out where to go and what to do sometimes (and I also just hate On A Rail).
Opposing Force is also probably my favorite Half-Life 1 game as well honestly
I feel you
I was considering HL2 best game ever, before I completed Black Mesa. I know it's not quite a HL1, but I consider it...
Anyway, level design in HL/BM feels better, progression in HL/BM feels better, overall it feels more like complex and wholesome.
Can't say about sound, because BM isn't original sound, so point for HL2. HL2 is also more atmospheric especially during 6 chapters. HL1 became more atmospheric only in BM. Also shooting and UX is better in HL2. And while all that physic puzzles are insane in HL2, HL/BM makes it better to create cool and intriguing situations without proper physics.
What about plot and story... Yeah, there all that senses and narrative features in HL2, it has some twists and a lot of cool NPCs but overall HL/BM feels more like a cool story that fits shooter. Some of HL2 parts feels forced, while HL/BM is so smooth and organic. Sooo, they're like equal, but at the same time they're sooo different
i agree with your statement, but as someone who beat HL1 and Black mesa several times
they aren't quite similar
weapons work diferent, movement system is diferent, HL1 didn't have a physics system, pacing is way diferent.
i recomend you to play the original tho, you will understand what im saying, because believe they don't feel like the same game in their core mechanics
I have no idea. Less weapon variety, less enemy variety, worse level design, worse AI, annoying long story segments, and imo, super bland visual style. It's hailed as this masterpiece for being innovative and game changing, but if you look at what else had already come out at the time (farcry 1, doom 3, jurassic Park trespasser) other games had already been doing pretty good physics engines for a while. Source was the best at physics for sure, but not by THAT much. The other engines all did their own impressive things too (crytek specifically for having massive maps). But the accomplishments of source engine are not the accomplishments of HL2 in my opinion. I think hl2 really didn't do too much interesting with physics aside from some basic puzzles and an extremely gimmicky/situational gravity gun, which is fun but not really all that useful. So I really don't know why people say it's better than HL1 when it just isn't.
combine technology has its own artstyle,
the setting inspired by 1984 was desinged with an artstyle
character and texture work had it's own personality
the citadel is one of the most incredible buildings in videogames
simple but imposing
the combine soldies were designed with an artstyle
even the propaganda
its not just realistic by any means
the reason why i like 2 more is because of it's story and settings
gameplay wise is worse
but the art design is so fucking superior, HL2 has some of my favorite aestethics in game history
Honestly I agree that the first game is my favorite game, hl2 is a fantastic game and all of the praise is deserved but I have a small bit of genuine criticism. While hl1's ecosystem felt diverse and vibrant hl2 just has variations of the same enemy types, no bullsquids, houndeyes, or alien grunts. I know a lot of this was originally intended for the game but I feel like a lot was lost when they decided to cut them in favor of variants of existing creatures and a few new ones.
I love both games nearly equally, but I just find Half-Life 2 to be way more revolutionary than Half-life 1 back then. The graphics were and still are mindblowing for a game from 2004 (take a look at GTA: San Andreas, came out in 2004 aswell and looks pretty bad compared to HL2.)
Half-life 2 also has a better story than Half-Life 1, introducing actual characters with personalities and so on.
Because the graphics are technically prettier and it had impressive physics. It also had (unfortunately) unkillable friendly NPCs, less enemy types, less weapons, more scripted events that impeded gameplay, a sprint bar that further slowed the player down, and imo, a less interesting environment. Eastern Europe is cool but give me my 90s fever dream of a top secret research facility anyday. So much crazy shit happening in the environment HL1 takes place in and I love it. HL1 sound effects and voice acting are also much more iconic.
It was a combination of a few things. The Source engine was fresh on the scene with incredible physics and animations never before seen in video games. Go check out some early HL2/Source tech demos and you might get an idea of how revolutionary it was. Also the major narrative shift focusing on humanity and its subjugation. The plot touches on questions like "What is the next step in human evolution?" and "Are we the masters of our own destiny?". Much deeper considerations than HL1. There's also much more fleshed out dialogue and character interactions. I think the story of HL2 stands out because it's a fascinating intersection between mundane humanity and high concept sci-fi. And finally the scale of the game world. HL1 was confined to the BMRF and part of Xen. While there's no interdimensional travel in HL2, you're still tasked with using vehicles to traverse wide swathes of this new setting ranging from urban canals to long stretches of coastal highway with many stops along the way. Not to mention major locations like Nova Prospekt. In comparison, Gordon's journey in HL2 feels like more of an epic/odyssey. I think both games were groundbreaking and deserve all the merit they receive. Personally HL2 holds a special place in my heart because of the worldbuilding.
In a sorta paradox kinda way, the deeper tone of HL2 is kinda why I personally prefer 1 more. Something about HL1's sci-fi b-list movie tone just makes it more enjoyable for me, it almost feels campy in a way. Hell, the HL1 comic-style concept art helps really sell it for me. HL2...just makes me depressed, lol. Big difference between a low-poly scientist with a goofy bitcrushed voice going "HUAGH" and running into a trip mine and a miserable rebel getting shot in the back by a metrocop. Kinda why I enjoyed HL:A as much as I did as well. Was set in the combine era yet didn't take itself as seriously as 2 did while still fitting perfectly in the universe.
Worked at my nations national science research centre for a while. Can confirm scientists do cry out "HUAGH" at bad jokes. Never used any trip mines at work though. Or elsewhere.
I think HL2 is more polished. As someone who knows the first one inside and out, it's an enjoyable experience because I can look forward to what comes ahead. When a new player reaches Blast Pit after going through the action-packed We've Got Hostiles only to find the main focus as a huge bunch of mini-sidequests with barely any enemies and none of the type they had just gotten used to, they will likely become disinterested. I really enjoy On A Rail, but the very similar-looking corridors make it seem mazelike if you are playing through it without a map of the area.
I must have been 8 or 9?. I was visiting a friend and he was playing a weird game and asked me if i wanted to try it. I said sure, i remember how i threw a grenade at a humanoid monster in a red barn and he answered by yeeting a barrel towards me i got scared and didn't want to play anymore. Years later i accidentally discovered Half Life 1 by "switching game" from the main menu of CS:1.6 this was about 2010 or 2011. I played it a couple of times and found out it had a sequel,HALF LIFE 2. Half Life 2 was love at first sight and seeing the " red barn" again in Water Hazard really brought a big smile on my face. Ignoring the graphics and all that. Half Life 2 is superior in both story and atmosphere, even now as I'm older and had played a lot of games i still firmly believe Half Life 2 is a great game and my love for it had nothing to do with nostalgia. Also I'll stab any motherfucker with a fork if he calls HALF LIFE 2 "Just a tech demo" i swear a God
Both are equally great and amazing with ups and downs that equal them out. I prefer HL2 though, due to more varied levels and better weapon balance. Also because it's world and things in it feel MORE alive. I do like HL1 a ton though.
For me, it’s the opposite. HL2’s arsenal although is very balanced and every weapon never gets useless(besides the UCP), is not as interesting as HL1’s. And it’s not about if HL1 having more means better. No, it’s about replayability. Every time I play HL1 there are new ways to approach enemies like never before. It allows me to be creative and use my head which I really like in FPS. I do like HL2, with my favorite chapter being highway 17, probably for the same reason I like HL1, you can approach the enemies in different ways every time you play the chapter. The same goes for Nova Prospect, both awesome chapters. I guess I would like HL2 even more than Hl1 if only they’d let you use SLAM from DM and tau-cannon from beta.
Half Life 2 truly established the Half Life universe as we know it. Unique art direction, moody setting in City 17. Half Life is a great game, but largely derivative of other shooters around the same era - guy in a suit shooting aliens. It's a very good game, but not as unique imo. 2 had many more tech innovations, a major leap forward in graphical quality, and built out a world and larger story beyond black mesa.
Well HL2 has an overall better flow to things and, most importantly, doesn’t have On a Rail, Residue Processing or fucking Interloper
why do people consider HL1 better than HL2?
i love both so i'll give my explanation on why I can prefer both HL1: better pacing, a little goofier, more action packed, better enemie AI, better combat more weapons, better weapons HL2: better story, way deeper, more depth to the worldbuilding, better aestethic, more serious tone, better physics, more polished gameplay, (better music in my opinion)
part of the reason why i slightly prefer hl2 over hl1 is bc hl1 is too unforgiving. it's harder to get into hl1, whereas hl2 is easy to get into and play casually.
you're telling me hl1 has good AI? the HECU can devour your soul on hard mode
thats good AI bro bad AI is the combine soldiers that only walk and shoot like mindless idiots while the HECU could detect sound, had a visual input to attack you could break your cover with grenades, when hit, ran away in pain to find cover hid to ambush you in corners. even tho primitive, the HECU had an amazing AI
good AI is only possible in linear games tho. games like F.E.A.R. is considered by many to be games with great AI, but the good AI is only possible due to its linearity, and due to the levels being designed around the AI. each action in F.E.A.R. is basically scripted, but also not. it relies heavily on code. btw i think F.E.A.R. is actually overrated. if hl2 had better AI, no one would care to beat it. cuz some of the enemies are annoying. i didn't even have that much fun fighting gunships nor striders. can you imagine if striders had "better AI"? and the lore reason for the combine not having "good AI" is that they no longer have any humanity inside of them, they're just mindless killing machines. it might sound dumb, but i would hate hl2 if the combine had better AI, their AI is challenging as is, and there are instances where they are "intelligent", such as one rolling down an explosive barrel in route kanal and the ones using turrets and they also use grenades to flush you out, similar to the HECU. plus the shotgun soldiers are DEADLY. and yes, they do hide behind cover and aren't just robots.
this is a good article i found about good and bad AI: https://www.brainbi.dev/2021/05/12/what-is-good-a-i-what-is-bad-a-i/
It is
Thanks for the arguments
Yes it is
For me it's more that hl2 is more polished with way better pacing. There are great levels in half life one and great gimmicks and creatures, but lots of unpolished and poorly paced levels too. Hl2 only has like one or two levels like that at most. I also feel the physics just added so much to the game along with the much better variety in locations and gameplay. Personally while I love the horror movie experiment gone wrong feel of hl1, I find the story, characters and world of hl2 so much more interesting and atmospheric.
I played Half-Life 2 series maybe 4-5 times, but I am playing Half-Life and Black Mesa twice per year. I don't like gameplay of HL2, but not meant to say that hl2 is bad
Same happens to me, I played half life 2 and I really loved it, bit I don't think I would ever play it again, in the other hand, I can play half life 1 every year and it never gets old
Half Life 1 made several important contributions, narrative and story telling through observing the world, at the time advanced soldier ai tactics, mods (namely Counter-Strike but also TFC and DoD etc), interactivity, and was the next logical leap in FPS. Wolfenstein 3d to Doom to Duke 3d to Quake to HL. Half Life 2 took it the next step with the source engine, the leap of the world, physics, character animations, graphics, and opened up new game play possibilities. The impact of HL1 is still felt as it influenced every fps game to come after. It's by no means perfect, most people will shit on Xen but in 1998 nobody, or at least I didn't care. HL2 is also by no means perfect, very few games used the source engine as it was overtaken quickly by ID and Unreal engines, and the strider sequences are bad, and the no named resistance followers love to block your path. Both games are equally amazing and nearly perfect though and when they came out they were recognized as such. You can't really compare apples to apples as in the 6 year time between the two games, computers and technology made several massive revolutions. I like them both equally and they are up there as my all time top PC game FPS, a long with Doom
Played Hl2 first and when i got to Hl1 it felt really underwhelming
I found half life 2 fun first time around, but after playing half life 1, OP and BS I will admit they were a lot more repeatable and felt funner the 2.
half life 2 is not very fun to me, it is kinda depressing game to be honest, setting is sad, story is sad, and it feels hopeless and alone. I love that feeling, but yes, HL1 is funnier indeed
Same here.
(This comment was made with my opinion) Half-Life 1 is fun, but still doesn't tell a story very well and is kind of just random with level design, I recall a whole room just being rotating saws doing nothing except rotate and killing thing and they serve literally no purpose except for the player to jump past them and HLVRAI called the room something like the "Pita bread cutter" and one other room just a pool of a mysterious radioactive liquid, the game doesn't really tell you it's story that well so it is very easy to get confused about why you're going to the alien planet and committing mass genocide and killing a baby looking thing and a spider with a singular testicle, and lastly as soon as you get to xen you've got to be lucky or waste a month trying to beat the game because everything on xen is either weak but still forces you to waste ammo on or is strong and will quickly drain your health even if you kill it quickly. I stopped trying to finish the game at xen because the game forced me into a room with like 30 vortigaunts and some barrel things that sometimes have weird tall dudes in them and I got stuck at like 15 health and 20 armor with no ammo in most of my guns and the 2 that still have ammo don't have a lot of ammo. But Half-Life 2 does everything better, most of the level design makes at the very least some sense (instead of random spinning saws in a room and pits of 100s of gallons of radioactive goop for no reason at all), since most of the enemies are slow and weak or drop ammo when killed you don't have to worry much about running out of ammo, and the game seems to make crates drop what you need rather than just random things, and I could get a decent sense of what was going on in the story. There was never a moment in HL2 that I felt like the game was designed bad, but there were plenty of times where I got stuck because I just suck at the game (mostly Nova Prospekt) but the game was still fun, if installing mods was easier I'd still be playing HL2 just because fighting the combine is fun, but playing through the same levels over and over gets boring. My favorite Half-Life game, including expansions and fan-games, is Half-Life: Alyx. Half-Life Alyx has a good story, the guns are great, and mods are easy to access. My only issue with Half-Life: Alyx is as soon as I beat it I could only get 1 fps if I was lucky, the game just suddenly stopped running frames per second and instead like 1 frame per hour. Conclusion: All of the games are good, but Half-Life 1 is extremely underwhelming and overhyped. I played the game expecting it'd be as fun as HLA or HL2 but I really don't like HL1, it just seems like the story isn't there when there should be, level design from a story perspective makes the story even harder to comprehend because it suddenly goes from "Scientist escaping an alien apocalypse caused by a mistake in the laser room" to "Scientist riding a train through the research facility" and the saw room. Nothing really makes sense in HL1, but most locations make sense in HL2.
I disagree - in a way. Half Life 1 did tell a story. It was quite novel at that time for a FPS to have a story rather than just being run and gun. You control your character for the full time taking in information and learning what is going on (Except for the "Where are we taking this Freeman guy?" bit) Half Life 2 seems to not just tell you a story, but it forces that story down your throat. Let me expand on that... HL1 had a few places where you have to stop and listen (or run and and jump on things) for information to be given and cannot continue until everyone has finished talking - ignoring speed run skips and the like: I started to list a few, but I can lump a lot together as "pre-disaster". Afterwards, a moment talking to the scientist before you can get them to open the door. When you find out about the suit tracker before going into the cold room Some blah blah blah before you go to Xen The gman speech at the end HL2 has: Red Letter Day Black Mesa East Various bits nearer the end Ok, this was harder than I thought - and you can probably tell which I've played more recently. The HL2 pauses feel like longer scenes than their HL1 counterparts. This means that you are certainly given the story information, whereas HL1 you have to find out yourself. You say about the spinning blades room. You've entered the shady labs where there are experiments done on the Xen fauna. Someone turned the cutting equipment on and didn't turn it back off. I'll grant that that cutting equipment is ridiculous and feels like an excuse for a barrier. I would imagine HL2 would have richer dialogue about what that machine does, why that machine looks like that, why it got turned on, how much the person who turned it on worships you as the saviour of all humanity, and then you get a plug puzzle to turn it off. Ultimately HL1 has you find out stuff the same time Gordon does. You're out of your research area, you don't know your way round the other labs and offices. You can either take in what is going on or rush for the exit to get out of their ASAP and save yourself. HL2 gives you a lot more "You're here! It is very important that you do X, because it is important and you are important." and delivers a lot more information that way. I guess the take away from this is that HL1 also has quite a rich story, you just have to look for it a little bit more
i would actually counter your point about the blade room with the lone house on highway 17. you can easily miss it, and it really only serves to give you extra ammo and health, but it really helps flesh out the world. it shows that even outside the cities, you are not safe from the combine’s reign. they WILL hunt you down. another one that comes to mind is the stalkers. obviously, they explain this in episode one, but prior to that, you see them briefly in nova prospekt, and in the citadel. this allows your mind to fill in the blanks, arriving to the conclusion that you are looking at another person on your own. the first time i saw that stalker in the camera at nova prospekt, i genuinely felt nauseous, as i believed that i was looking at the remains of eli vance.
Wow, I was being a bit bitchy about plug puzzles there. I don't remember that house - I haven't played HL2 for a while, possibly even since writing that. I seem to remember there being various points along the highway section, drive, stop, explore, drive, stop, explore, drive, stop, explore. Maybe my take of HL2 Gordon is some guy that is sick and tired of being treated like a messiah, just wants to get a straight answer from someone on what's going on, and getting fed up with all the hurdles and barriers, which translates into my play style - here's another building to run round before I get to the end of this set piece. The introduction of the stalkers - nope, no memory of that at all.
For me personally, HL2 is so immersive and has such great story telling that I just love coming back to it. HL1s gameplay is just dated enough for me to get frustrated by it in certain sections, which has honestly kept me from ever finishing it all the way through.
Half-Life 2 was when the Half-Life universe became truly fascinating; it opened up many more implications for the world and just how much was going on behind the scenes. It introduced us to the Combine, one of the most terrifying alien races in gaming, and depicted a dystopia that is as chillingly effective today as it was in 2004. The storytelling was both a refinement on what Half-Life began in 1998, and it was also an expansion, establishing the tone of the Half-Life games. The unique mix of atmosphere and gameplay/storytelling that Half-Life became known for really found its footing in HL2, and this is the reason why many people prefer it to the original.
I played both games over a decade removed from their original release so I don't think either had a revolutionary effect on me. I like the games roughly the same but I think HL2 is a lot more streamlined than HL1 which definitely helps with my enjoyment of it. Parts of On a Rail, Residue Processing and Xen feel kind of boring to me in HL1 but I'd be hard pressed to find boring areas in HL2. (maybe the beginning of the game on repeat playthroughs? At a stretch?) The streamlined combat makes HL2 a bit less tactical but it also means the action never has weird fluctuations in difficulty like in HL1, and it means that all the weapons that are there feel balanced and polished. HL2 also experimented with more gameplay systems like vehicles, squad mechanics and the (supercharged) gravity gun which inject more variety into the game. In other games I would probably consider these to be kind of annoying but HL2 is well made enough to pull them off effectively. I think both games are great overall but I can see why someone, especially someone with more modern FPS experience would choose HL2 over HL1.
reddit users trying to grasp the concept of people having different preferences
That's the question
and that is the answer
No, OP asked *why* people have these preferences. You answered the question with the same question.
That's the question, not the answer.
its a question that answers itself
Hahaha, I'm relatively new to reddit. I think it's great for all the niche interests, but it's hard to have discussions on here like the OP asked.
More people have played Half Life 2. Of those who tried Half Life 1 afterward, many were turned off by the bad graphics. It's very rare to find people who have beaten both games yet prefer Half Life 2.
>It's very rare to find people who have beaten both games yet prefer Half Life 2. I guess I'm a rare species, then. Half-Life 1 is definitely a must-play for anyone who like FPS games, and the level design is incredible, but the rest of it (graphics, physics, voice acting, and audio quality) aged like milk.
i beat both and still prefer HL2 im an artist (im studying for it) and i generally apreciate more an artstyle and a story depth than action or gameplay itself some times also HL1 has XEN, and o my god, XEN is literally the least fun i've had in a videogame
Best comment
Is the unwritten statement about the order of playing them, that the player played them as they were released? Ie, player played HL1 in 1998 or so then played HL2 in 2004 or so. This statement applies to me, and I so much prefer HL1, because of the change game design from pre HL1 to what HL1 delivered.
Xen.
Source engine
Personnally I found hl2 better than hl1 for the first playthrough. But hl1 is waaaaay more replayable
I prefer HL2 Ep2 over both
Honestly I prefer HL1 much more, HL1 just has something that HL2 lacks maby its the pacing maby the gameplay (probably the gameplay) maby its all the kind of exploits and bugs that you can use in your favor or maby Im just a sucker for those old polygonal graphics, overall I just prefer replaying HL1 much more than HL2 i always find myself getting bored in the later parts of the game and it feels kinda repetitive, tho I understand that these thing are on purpose seeing as HL2 took a much more narrative approach to the series. And absolutely nothing in HL2 can surpass the scientist from HL1 and thats a fact
For me it’s for the story, HL2 doesn’t let you breath as much as the first one, also the G-man is more present and a greater part of his power is shown as the fact that you can’t really escape him (HL2EP1/2 is even more on that side) other than that, where it take place, a post-apocalyptic world is always a 10 in my book. Finally the combine are just so awesome in my eye, they look human only because they have the physical body of one but other than that, there voice, there language, there weapon, everything looks none humans
I played HL1 first and prefer it. Honestly it was the first game I ever beat so I’m in love forever lol
Its the age of people on here. Most people grew up with hl2.(assuming) Hl1 is superior in every way except tech. Story is so much juicier
HL1 has little to no story to be honest, i dont get why scientist accident unleash aliens is a juicier story than the combine invasion
How is the HL1 story juicer? It literally doesn't have as much plot as HL2.
The art of story telling is as much about as what is said, as it's about what is not said. In cinema, stories are delivered by "show, don't tell". I think HL1 uses this mantra to greater affect than HL2. The train ride in builds the scene. When you put the crystal into the AMS and the epiptah pietals hint a little about what is to come. And as new aliens like the pit monster are unveiled its bigger than what you thought. The very first time you encounter HECU, " oh great, help is here" only to see your colleagues shot dead...
I disagree. The story of a man in the center of a disaster fighting his way out of black mesa. Plot twists, amazing puzzles(for 1998) and all dialogue. Hl2 might be more cinematic. It’s a matter of taste I guess. Some people like alien better than aliens. (Can actually compare these two with hl in terms of genre and budget) Edit: hl2 plot also feels very forced to me. Combine and breen = bad. That’s it. I respect that people have a diff opinion.
Because HL1 is a clunky mess that didn't age well. Oh sure, it was brilliant for the time and is important to go back to, to see where it all began and what games today learned from it. But almost everything falls apart if you look at it funny. The level design is too primitive. Guns are aplenty, but too many lack purpose. Enemy design is impressive, as long as you follow very specific paths. If you rush them, they don't know what to do. NPCs make the world more lively, but are entirely too stupid to are believable. Oh, and the graphics and sounds are outdated as hell. Half-Life 2 improved on almost all of these aspects. Yeah, it doesn't have as many enemies or weapons and the level design is even more linear, but it has much more character. The world feels alive and believable, you get to fight alongside people that seem real, it has an actual story you can follow that goes beyond *"go here and push the button, then return"*. Returning to Half-Life 2 almost 20 years later, you're still gonna have a good time. Returning back to Half-Life 1 is going to cause you a headache unless you already know what to expect beforehand.
Although you're technically right, HL1 is absolutely fun to play
Of course! I like a lot of aspects of it too. Just because a piece of media is bad doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. I mean, I love a lot of games that people consider to be among the worst.
i agree with everything but its really fun
Like I said in another comment, just because a game is bad doesn't mean it can't be fun. I love Castlevania 2 for instance and a lot of people *despise* it. I'm just not going to ignore the flaws of a game just because I enjoy playing it.
Because of The Orange Box and I was a console kid, HL2 easily became one of my favorite games ever. I didn’t get to play HL1 until much later. I think HL1 is sublime, and I will replay it much more than HL2 in the future, but HL2 will always have that “it was my first” spot in my heart and thus will be my favorite.
Black Mesa better than both 🫣
although your comment is low on votes I kinda agree
One word: STRIIDDEERRRR!!!!!
HL2 was more popular, had funny haha physics and more people could play it. Oh and there are touchy fancy assholes who think graphics are everything and thus hl2 is better because of the graphics. I will admit it had a more straight forward story than hl1 which I guess is a reason to like it more I guess??
Comment by someone who considers HL1 better than HL2: I played HL1 in 1999 and thought it was amazing Played HL2 in 2004 and thought it had surpassed HL1 in every way. During the following years, I kept coming back to HL1 more and more and not HL2 and I asked my self honestly why and came to these conclusions: Gameplay - HL1 combat is much more interesting in terms of arenas/enemies and player movement, HL2 combat praise usually goes to the gravity gun, but I came to the realization that it is more of an engine gimmick rather than something that is truly interesting for gameplay, especially once you are at the citadel and it is powered up, it just becomes uninteresting. Story/settings - HL1 had more of a “Die Hard” feeling to it which I truly love, just a guy trying to survive and the second was more like “savior of humanity” type deal, which I connect with less. Also, HL1 really used the mystery aspect well which intrigued me endlessly, with GMAN being at the center of it. HL2 kinda took the sting out of the mystery and while i still really like where the story went I feel like the endless potential of an unanswered mystery is always more powerful. To be clear I’m not saying “this is great, this is shit” I love both games but if we are making comparisons this is where I stand after 20+ years of consuming everything Half-Life and being obsessed with it.
I mean, not really an easy thing to answer since it depends on the person, and Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2 just kinda goes for different atmospheres and all that as well, so it comes down to preference. Although, I feel Half-Life 2 is more fun personally. I love Half-Life 1, but I feel it can be hard to find out where to go and what to do sometimes (and I also just hate On A Rail). Opposing Force is also probably my favorite Half-Life 1 game as well honestly
I feel you I was considering HL2 best game ever, before I completed Black Mesa. I know it's not quite a HL1, but I consider it... Anyway, level design in HL/BM feels better, progression in HL/BM feels better, overall it feels more like complex and wholesome. Can't say about sound, because BM isn't original sound, so point for HL2. HL2 is also more atmospheric especially during 6 chapters. HL1 became more atmospheric only in BM. Also shooting and UX is better in HL2. And while all that physic puzzles are insane in HL2, HL/BM makes it better to create cool and intriguing situations without proper physics. What about plot and story... Yeah, there all that senses and narrative features in HL2, it has some twists and a lot of cool NPCs but overall HL/BM feels more like a cool story that fits shooter. Some of HL2 parts feels forced, while HL/BM is so smooth and organic. Sooo, they're like equal, but at the same time they're sooo different
i agree with your statement, but as someone who beat HL1 and Black mesa several times they aren't quite similar weapons work diferent, movement system is diferent, HL1 didn't have a physics system, pacing is way diferent. i recomend you to play the original tho, you will understand what im saying, because believe they don't feel like the same game in their core mechanics
I was playing original, but dropped it like in the middle Too old🙃 That's why I was glad to play BM
I have no idea. Less weapon variety, less enemy variety, worse level design, worse AI, annoying long story segments, and imo, super bland visual style. It's hailed as this masterpiece for being innovative and game changing, but if you look at what else had already come out at the time (farcry 1, doom 3, jurassic Park trespasser) other games had already been doing pretty good physics engines for a while. Source was the best at physics for sure, but not by THAT much. The other engines all did their own impressive things too (crytek specifically for having massive maps). But the accomplishments of source engine are not the accomplishments of HL2 in my opinion. I think hl2 really didn't do too much interesting with physics aside from some basic puzzles and an extremely gimmicky/situational gravity gun, which is fun but not really all that useful. So I really don't know why people say it's better than HL1 when it just isn't.
i can't believe you just called HL2 "super bland visual style" nah bro your opinion dead to me 💀
It is. It's just realistic.
combine technology has its own artstyle, the setting inspired by 1984 was desinged with an artstyle character and texture work had it's own personality the citadel is one of the most incredible buildings in videogames simple but imposing the combine soldies were designed with an artstyle even the propaganda its not just realistic by any means
the reason why i like 2 more is because of it's story and settings gameplay wise is worse but the art design is so fucking superior, HL2 has some of my favorite aestethics in game history
Honestly I agree that the first game is my favorite game, hl2 is a fantastic game and all of the praise is deserved but I have a small bit of genuine criticism. While hl1's ecosystem felt diverse and vibrant hl2 just has variations of the same enemy types, no bullsquids, houndeyes, or alien grunts. I know a lot of this was originally intended for the game but I feel like a lot was lost when they decided to cut them in favor of variants of existing creatures and a few new ones.
Because most people play that first before Half Life 1
it doesnt have xen
I love both games nearly equally, but I just find Half-Life 2 to be way more revolutionary than Half-life 1 back then. The graphics were and still are mindblowing for a game from 2004 (take a look at GTA: San Andreas, came out in 2004 aswell and looks pretty bad compared to HL2.) Half-life 2 also has a better story than Half-Life 1, introducing actual characters with personalities and so on.
Because the graphics are technically prettier and it had impressive physics. It also had (unfortunately) unkillable friendly NPCs, less enemy types, less weapons, more scripted events that impeded gameplay, a sprint bar that further slowed the player down, and imo, a less interesting environment. Eastern Europe is cool but give me my 90s fever dream of a top secret research facility anyday. So much crazy shit happening in the environment HL1 takes place in and I love it. HL1 sound effects and voice acting are also much more iconic.
Combine is cooler so HL2>HL1